Education

The number of new undergraduate computing majors continued to grow last year, rising 13.4 percent, according to a report from the Computing Research Association. Although that’s smaller growth than has been seen in years, it does represent the sixth straight period of growth. Enrollments bottomed out in 2007, just before the recession. New computer science enrollments grew by nearly 30 percent in 2011-12 and 23 percent the year before. Last year, 63,873 students enrolled in computer science programs, compared with… continue…

The pipeline of STEM talent in the U.S. continues to lag even as the need for tech professionals continues to soar, according to an index put together by Raytheon and U.S. News. The U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index looks at 93 factors, including ACT math and science scores, Advance Placement test scores, college and graduate degrees granted and U.S. employment in STEM fields. Says the report: …after a long period of flat to down indicators, there has been some upward movement,… continue…

Do you need a bachelor’s degree to have a successful career in IT? Not necessarily. In some occupations, professionals with less-costly two-year degrees may actually out-earn people with more education, according to research from Georgetown University. In fact, Georgetown says that 28 percent of people with an associate’s degree make more than the median of workers with a bachelor’s degree. For instance, you can make a nice living as a Web developer, application developer, computer programmer, computer support specialist, game… continue…

When it comes to working in New York City’s tech scene, the lack of a bachelor’s degree isn’t an impediment: a recent report (PDF) by the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), NY Tech Meetup (NYTM), Citi, and Google found that 44 percent of jobs in the city’s “tech ecosystem” don’t require a four-year diploma. New York City has spent several years encouraging the growth of “Silicon Alley.” In addition to major tech companies such as Google and Facebook… continue…

An alternative is rising for people who want to develop new technical skills: Hacker schools, which are billed as quick, cheap alternatives to traditional educational approaches. The schools are cropping up across the country, especially in tech-heavy areas like San Francisco, New York and Boston. They’re not cheap, though. A program at the Iron Yard, based in South Carolina, takes three months and costs $9,000. A two-month program at Atlanta’s Tech Talent South runs $6,250 for full-time students and $4,250… continue…

IT engineers continue to be in demand, and the proof is in their salaries, according to the 2013–2014 PayScale College Salary report. Their roles accounted for a sizable chunk of the top 10 salaries across all industries when measured by median pay for graduates with at least 10 years of experience. Computer engineering majors, sharing sixth place with electrical engineering majors, had an annual median salary of $106,000 for those at the mid-career level. When starting out – with five… continue…

Getting women into STEM careers has got to start somewhere and educators, as well as industry players, increasingly advocate starting them at a young age – even as early as when they enter kindergarten. The industry’s desire to hit the problem hard and early is based on the lackluster percentage of women who currently work in computing. Women hold only 25 percent of computing jobs and the percentage interested in pursuing a STEM career dropped to 18 percent in 2010… continue…

Hackbright Academy in San Francisco is a 10-week boot camp with a twist: Not only is the year-old program for women only, all of its graduates began with established careers in non-STEM fields. Through its intensive training, mentoring, final projects and “speed dating” career day, Hackbright has been able to place graduates into positions as software engineers at startups and established organizations including Change.org, Eventbrite, Facebook, Flixster, Heroku, New Relic, Rdio, Perforce, Pinterest, Pivotal Labs, StubHub, SurveyMonkey, Trulia, Twilio and… continue…

It was two years ago that Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun drew 160,000 students from around the globe to his free online course on artificial intelligence, starting a conversation about the coming wave of free online education. But despite claims that free online courses would revolutionize education, the New York Times is reporting that initial results for large-scale courses are rather disappointing. A study from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education of a million users of massive open online… continue…

Seven days, 16.4 million students and 539,213,554 lines of code. That’s the end result of the Hour of Code organized as part of last week’s Computer Science Education Week. The staggering participation rate far surpassed the expectations of the organizers and Code.org founders, brothers Hadi and Ali Partovi. In an interview with Dice News before the week, Hadi Partovi said: “10 million students is an aspirational, audacious goal, and it’s a worldwide goal.” In an AllThingsD interview, Hadi Partovi said… continue…